Hungarian schools required some military education for all students from the seventh grade through secondary school and higher education. The regime saw military education as an integral part of general education, a way by which young people could acquire the skills they would need when serving in the army and a means to increase the defense capability of the country. Such training included weapons maintenance and use, radio communications, electronic and mechanical engineering, aircraft piloting, parachute training, and scuba diving.
Actual premilitary training was optional but was advised before age seventeen and obligatory from age seventeen to callup , up to age twenty-three. No more than two years of such training could be required. This training could assume different forms, including a camp setting. In 1984 the MHSz and the Pioneer youth organization established such a camp for premilitary training on Szentendre Island in the Danube, north of Budapest. In 1987 nearly 150 secondary students attended, half the number that applied. The boys were placed in radio communications and shooting groups, while both girls and boys participated in sports. Various programs included military theory and practice, computer games, movies, "patrol competitions," sports, and excursions. Soldiers supervised some activities, and the HPA provided the meals.
Data as of September 1989